A Study in Scarlet (Latter-Day Saints, testimony, tradition, Mormonism, America)

[Halcyon]

Hey guys, have any of you ever read 'A Study in Scarlet' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Its about Mormonism and, obviously, is fictional, but i assume it must have some of its information from historical sources.
It contains references to a group of men called the Danite Band who supposedly went around abducting women and murdering people in the name of the Mormon church.

I was just wondering if there was any historical evidence for such a group, or if it was entirely fictional?

[michel]

I haven't read it, but I found a study guide on it:-

http://www.chriswillis.freeserve.co.uk/crimeabs.html


Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet is often dismissed as simply anti-Mormon, but a close reading of the work in historical context reveals a wealth of concerns and complexities, primarily centering around potential conflicts between centralized policing and the British tradition of liberty in the nineteenth century.

Doyle uses the Danites, a quasi-military protective body associated with the Mormon migration to Utah, to depict a proto-police force gone awry, and the use of the Mormons to represent these fears was not arbitrary. Though Mormonism was a distinctly "American" religion, the migration of British converts to the new "Holy Land" of Utah was well documented by London newspapers of the time. Even as Doyle raised fears of dystopic policing, many of them specific to Victorian England, he could displace them onto a society at once anglicized and alienated.

In vilifying surveillance as it does, A Study in Scarlet would seem to present an unsolvable problem: the series must be based upon the success of a detective, and yet success itself, and the methods used to achieve it, have been rendered suspect. Doyle solves this paradox by reiterating the limitations imposed by the "consultation" model of private detection. A defining feature of the canon as a whole is the disruption of the crime sequence; the consultation model assures that detection will be applied only where a preexisting circumstance warrants it.

Furthermore, the peculiar structure of this work allies the reader with this consultation model, and against other forms of policing. Though the reader eventually learns the motivating factors and execution of the crime, he too initially enters the case in medias res, after reader-surveillance is given direction and justification by an extant crime. The reader, therefore, becomes incorporated into the system of binaries that operates through the novella.
Hope that helps!

[jonny]

I never heard of the book or the Danites.

[Aqualung]

I read the book, but don't know of the historical significance. (we're really helpful, aren't we )

[jonny]

Here is what I found about it on Wikipedia:

The second half of the story is called The Country of the Saints and jumps to the United States of America and the Mormon community, and incorporating a highly-fictionalized depiction of the Danites. It is told in a third person narrative style, with an omniscient narrator, before returning in the last chapter to Watson's account of Holmes' investigation and his solution of the crime. In this chapter the relationship between the two halves of the novel becomes apparent. The motive for the crime is essentially one of lost love and revenge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_in_Scarlet

There is also information on the Danites on Wikipedia. I guess I had heard of them but I never knew the name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danites

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

Hey guys, have any of you ever read 'A Study in Scarlet' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Its about Mormonism and, obviously, is fictional, but i assume it must have some of its information from historical sources.
It contains references to a group of men called the Danite Band who supposedly went around abducting women and murdering people in the name of the Mormon church.

I was just wondering if there was any historical evidence for such a group, or if it was entirely fictional?

Okay, here, from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism is the scoop on the Danites:
"Following the violence in northwestern Missouri in 1838, the Mormon dissident Sampson Avard, star witness in a court of inquiry weighing evidence against LDS leaders, charged that the Church had organized a band of armed men bound by secret oaths who had engaged in illegal activities against non-Mormon neighbors. With the 1841 publication of the court proceedings, Avard's account became the foundation for all subsequent non-Mormon 'Danite' accounts. Thus was born the legend of the Danites.

Though no Danite organization was known..., the stereotype persisted, becoming a part of national discussion about Utah and the Latter-day Saints and for decades a staple of dime novels. By 1900 at least fifty novels had been published in English using the Avard-type Danite to develop story lines of murder, pillage, and conspiracy against common citizens.... The image became so pervasive that few readers were willing to question the accuracy of such portrayals.

The reality of Danites in Missouri in 1838 is both less and more than the stereotype. Contemporary records suggest something fundamentally different. In October, 1838, Albert Perry Rockwell, an LDS resident of... Missouri, wrote in his journal of a publich Danite organization that involved the whole Latter-day Saint community.... The Danite organization encompassed the full range of activities of a covenant community... Working in groups, with some assigned to defense, others to securing provisions, and still others to constructing dwellings, these Danites werved the interests of the whole. This was not the secret organization Avard spoke of..."

In the fall of 1838, with old settlers in Missouri swearing to drive the Mormons out rather than permit them to become a political majority, and with LDS leaders declaring that they would fight before again seeing their rights trampled, northwestern Missouri was in a state of war. Sparked by an effort to prevent LDS voting, violence erupted in August and soon spread. On both sides, skirmishes involved members of state-authorized militias. Evidence suggests that during this time of fear, clashes, and confusion, Sampson Avard, probably a captain within the public Danite structure and a militia officer, subverted the ideals of both by persuading his men to undertake the criminal activities he later argued were the authorized actions of the whole community. Encouraged perhaps by the firmly stated intention of leaders to meet force with force, but apparently without their approval, Avard used his Danite and military positions to mold a covert renegade band to avenge anti-Mormon outrages. He succeeded because, after weeks of responding to violence with strictly defensive measures, Avard was not alone in feeling that the time for forbearance had passed. Others of the time in late reminiscences recalled that clandestine meetings were held, which were subsequently reported to Joseph Smith, who then denounced Avard, removed him from his official command, and disbanded the maverick body. Though short-lived and unauthorized, the covert organization, thanks to Avard’s distorted and widely publicized testimony, usurped the former usage of ‘Danites,’ and the once honorable appellation became a synonym for officially sanctioned secret lawlessness."